Nuggets from Reggie McNeal

Recently Marty Duren posted several quotes from a seminar given by Reggie McNeal in an article entitled, Nuggets from McNeal. Reggie is Director of Leadership Development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and author of The Present Future a "must read" book if you haven't had a chance to read it yet. I have included a partial list of the quotes that jumped out at me and relate to our own life, work, and ministry. For the entire list visit Marty's link above.

Don't count critics; weigh them.

Talking about the future will lead Satan to crank up enough background noise that we cannot hear God.

Christianity is the fastest growing religious/spiritual group in the world today: 175,000 new Christians in the world each day

In 1900, 80% of Christians were white, Western, northern hemisphere. In 2000, 80% were non-white, non-Western and southern hemisphere.

The church in North America is not like the Pharisees--we are the Pharisees, and Jesus does not like Pharisees.

The Pharisees clumped together and built a parallel culture--refuge theology is Pharisaical. When dealing with Pharisaism, we are dealing with a religion that has nothing to do with Jesus. They have a heart for religion, but not a heart for God.

The missional church is the most radical resorting of Christians since the reformation. Those who are missional have more in common with those in other tribes than with those in their own tribe who don't get it.

The kingdom of God is all about people, and God has seeded the value system of the younger generations (Xer's and millenials) that will feed the shift He has begun.

Kingdom growth is profoundly anti- what we have typically been doing.

The church is not the destination; the kingdom is the destination. Jesus does not say, "Thy church come." He spends 40 days before His ascension teaching about the kingdom. Acts closes with the kingdom. Jesus uses "church" twice, but "kingdom" 90 times. When the kingdom breaks out, things change. People's lives get radically re-altered; their entire worlds get re-ordered.

God says to Abram, "I'm blessing you so that you can bless all those people who are not like you." God reguarly blesses people with whom He disagrees.

Our conversation rate has to go up before our conversion rate can go up.

In a missionary culture a person does not look to the central hub for direction.

The "post-congregationlist" category is at 5% of the population and will go to 30% in the next 20 years.

Most people are burned out from dealing with prolonged trivia.

Most of the stuff that impacts our congregations happens outside our meetings and it is stuff that we cannot plan for.

People who live by a missionary set of values cannot abide those with a "club member" set of values.

The bandwith is expanded in a missional church: how many conversations are we having, how much life interface is taking place, how is our community service component, how many community leaders are we praying for, how many teachers have we partnered with, how many community groups have used our facility?

Feel free to jump in and comment on any of the above. They are thought-provoking, aren't they? What is your favorite that spoke to you?